


"yes, agnieszka, but how does the femme stuff make you feel", or: I just have a lot of feelings about femme stuff and femmeity and rule 63 fanworks.

by amorremanet



Category: Fandom - Fandom, Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 10 Years in Fandom, All Your Faves Are Queer, All Your Faves Are Trans, Author Commentary, Biphobia, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Lydia Martin, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Bisexuality, Butch/Femme, Character Development, Character Study, Chubby Scott McCall, Cis Girl Stiles Stilinski, Cisgender, Cissexism, Cisswap, Commentary, DFAB Scott McCall, Doctor Who References, Effeminophobia, Fandom Culture, Femininity, Femme, Femme Dean Winchester, Femme Isaac Lahey, Femme Lydia Martin, Femme Scott McCall, Femme Stiles Stilinski, Femmeity, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Gender Presentation, Gender Roles, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Scott McCall, Genderfuck, Genderplay, Genderqueer, I Don't Even Know, Identity Issues, LGBTQ Character of Color, Masculinity, Meta, Metafandom, Misogyny, Nonbinary Character, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other, Presentation Play, Queer Character, Queer Feels, Queer Scott McCall, Queer Themes, Racism, Rule 63, Social Commentary, Social Issues, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Isaac Lahey, Trans Male Character, Trans Man Isaac Lahey, Trans Vernon Boyd, Trans Woman Vernon Boyd, Transgender, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, Writing, Writing Exercise, Writing Meta, gender feels, i just have a lot of feelings, queer issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>But the thing is: I don't actually hate the idea of cisswapped characters suddenly being more visibly femme? Like. One of the reasons why I love femme dudes so much (aside from, "femme stuff makes everything prettier," which is my raison d'être in all things and could really just be the title of my blog) is that one of my wibbly wobbly gendery wendery things is that I'm so much more likely to do femme stuff and present in femme ways on the days when my timey wimey gender ball is sitting more in the dude side of the court. So femme dude characters are really important to me for living vicariously gender ball related reasons.</i>
</p><p>  <i>But there are also social and cultural factors to consider with regard to characterizing dude characters in femme ways.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	"yes, agnieszka, but how does the femme stuff make you feel", or: I just have a lot of feelings about femme stuff and femmeity and rule 63 fanworks.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [solvecoagula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/solvecoagula/gifts).



> …I have nothing to say for myself or for this so-called meta that is really a feels dump. I just had a lot of feelings. Crossposted to tumblr [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/70328109010/yes-agnieszka-but-how-does-the-femme-stuff-make-you).

so, I kind of realized something while I was babbling gender feels and characterization feels at Zani Lycanthropique Solvecoagula last night and picking her brain about Stiles characterization (which I was doing for reasons that I might make another post about once I'm done with this one but they mostly boil down to, "I don't trust my Stiles characterization entirely and I hold myself to a really high standard for characterization as a default but it's even higher for Stiles because reasons.")

But regardless of stuff I realized about Stiles feels, I realized some more general stuff about Rule 63 fanworks (in particular cisswap fanworks but not exclusively cisswap fanworks). Just. I know I've run my mouth off in the past about the suddenly super femme trend you see in a lot of cisswap fanworks where you turn a cis dude into a cis lady. You know, the trend where a character who is usually pretty butch in canon is suddenly super femme because well they're a cis lady now and well I mean reasons y'know??

I know I've run my mouth off about that trend before because I fucking hate that trend… which considering that this is a femme!everyone blog seems sort of kind of incongruous with me and what I like. But I just. The whole basis of the trend is really gross gender essentialism that says that a character's entire gender presentation must completely change because they're a cis lady now instead of a cis dude. not to mention the misogyny going on there with, "this is how all ladies act and dress and present themselves because reasons" sorts of arguments and the cissexism inherent in the dominance of cisswap fics over all other kinds of Rule 63 stuff you could get up to (which lbr is a big reason why sure Stiles is a cis girl in the Jude 'verse but Scott, Allison, Cora, and Derek are nonbinary, Boyd is a trans lady, and I think Isaac is a trans dude but that's not the point here).

But the thing is: I don't actually hate the idea of cisswapped characters suddenly being more visibly femme? Like. One of the reasons why I love femme dudes so much (aside from, "femme stuff makes everything prettier," which is my raison d'être in all things and could really just be the title of my blog) is that one of my wibbly wobbly gendery wendery things is that I'm so much more likely to do femme stuff and present in femme ways on the days when my timey wimey gender ball is sitting more in the dude side of the court. So femme dude characters are really important to me for living vicariously gender ball related reasons.

But there are also social and cultural factors to consider with regard to characterizing dude characters in femme ways and for the most part, people making Rule 63 fanworks (and cisswap fanworks in particular) aren't really considering them.

Like a central part of my femme!Dean headcanons is Dean struggling with his femmeity and struggling to accept it in some way or another not because it should be a struggle for him (and by god, I wish it weren't but it feels OOC for him to me not to have it be some kind of conflict for Dean)… but Dean J. Winchester, bless his heart, is a flagrantly effeminophobic misogynist a lot of the time and the times when he's less misogynistic are usually aimed at ladies who more fit his masculinist ideas of decency (like with Jo, Ellen, and Pamela) or with ladies he's romantically and/or sexually entangled with (like Cassie, Lisa, and Ellie and even that isn't any kind of guarantee here because Dean is also pretty misogynistic toward them).

Furthermore in Dean's case: in addition to being abusive, neglectful, and all around awful, John is a flagrantly effeminophobic misogynist (and I think we have every reason to believe that John is also cissexist and heterosexist at the very least. actively queer- and/or transphobic? maybe not, but definitely cissexist and heterosexist), and he literally effing drilled that shit into Dean's head right along with drilling all of the hunting stuff into Dean's head. And with Dean and John's relationship being what it was, Dean wouldn't even have needed for society to reify all of these things that John taught him but well, society totally agreed with John on these counts because USAmerican society is generally a heterosexist, cissexist, gender essentialist, effeminophobic, misogynistic cesspool of fail and gross.

And I don't think it's wrong of people to acknowledge that if Dean were a cis lady, her relationship with femme stuff and her own femmeity and her desire to do femme stuff and present as femme would be different from how these relationships are for cis dude!Dean because of things like the social and cultural factors going on here with regard to how DFAB people and DMAB people are socialized with regard to gender. (I think it bears saying that I don't think cis girl!Deanna would be totally and a hundred percent femme as fuck all the time, no matter how much I personally would like the thing, because like. John is still John, and John still really sucks with regard to feminine seeming anything and with regard to misogyny, and I think that cis girl!Deanna would probably hold herself to masculinist Strong Female Character Not Like The Other Girls sorts of standards in order to make her father happy but that's another story.)

**But, like. The thing here is that what I want from femme cisswap characters (and from all the femme characters in general, regardless of their Rule 63-ness or lack thereof) is that I want more acknowledgement and exploration of all the wibbly wobbly gender feels (emotionally and psychologically, socially and culturally, all the wibbly wobbly gendery wendery feels) that are going on here and how different things have different significances based on characters' sexes and genders.**

Like, by all means, make cis girl!Stiles (neé Agnieszka Joan Stilinski; it was her maternal grandmother’s name) super femme if that's what you want your cis girl!Stiles to be like (and I'm in favor of that because I love femme stuff so much; like the tag says, this is a femme!everyone blog and femme! **everyone** is my jam)… but don't have it just be, "well Stiles is a cis girl now so therefore Stiles is femme because that's how to be a cis girl." Because no. No, it's not. There are loads of ways to be a cis girl, an infinite panoply of ways to be a cis girl even, and it kind of feels like devaluing femme stuff and femmeity—not to mention policing ladies' myriad ways to get up to gender expression—to just enforce them on characters because they're cis ladies now.

Instead of having cis girl!Stiles just be femme because reasons, show me what her relationship with femme stuff and femmeity is. Instead of having cis girl!Stiles suddenly dressing in ways that canon!Stiles doesn't without any explanation beyond, "well Stiles is a cis girl now so reasons or whatever y'know that's just how it works right," show me Stiles being femme while still wearing flannel shirts and short hair and ripped jeans because just like there's an infinite panoply of ways to be a cis girl, there's an infinite panoply of ways to be femme. Instead of just going, "well she's femme now because she's a cis girl," really investigate all the potential that cisswaps (and all Rule 63 fics in general) open up for exploring characterization and exploring gender feels and creating stories.

Like. What does Stiles feel about her gender identity and her gender presentation. How do people react to it and how would those reactions be different than they would be if Stiles were a cis dude, a trans lady, a trans dude, nonbinary and DMAB, nonbinary and DFAB, etc. How does this relate to Stiles being bisexual (or whatever you headcanon Stiles as, as long as it's queer because Stiles has been so queerbaited in canon that I personally refuse to accept cishet!Stiles). What does Stiles think about Lydia's gender presentation and her femmeity, and how do her thoughts about Lydia impact her thoughts about her own gender stuff and her own femme stuff.

There's even more stuff to explore if you open your Rule 63 fanworks up to trans interpretations of the characters too. Like just riffing on my Jude 'verse characters because they're on my mind right now (the Jude verse being the verse with Agnieszka J. Stilinski): Boyd is still tall and muscular and not really butch as such but she isn't femme either and she wears her hair short, and how does that affect how people perceive her and treat her as a trans lady? How do people's estimations of her gender identity change based on the fact that even though she has a feminine-sounding chosen first name (Margaery… yes, after Game of Thrones), she still explicitly prefers to be called Boyd? How does her race play into things (e.g., how do people judge and perceive her gender, especially with regard to them seeing it as "valid" or not, based on her not really doing a lot of visibly femme stuff and the perceptions and stereotypes that black women have to deal with)?

Or for trans dudes… I'm still not sure if Jude verse!Isaac is a trans dude or not because he is currently a big question mark for me but like, there's a lot of presumption in fandom and society as a whole that trans dudes are all butch and heterosexual because clearly they're just butch lesbians who "took things one step further" and "became men" for one reason or another. For one thing, this is gross and heterosexist and gender essentialist and it's the kind of bullshit that radscum spew on a daily basis so you really shouldn't do the thing.

(no seriously. please please please, jfc PLEASE do not do the thing; it helps create an environment where a lot of trans guys spend so much time and energy invalidating their own gender identities and telling themselves that that that they aren't "really trans" and generally being awful to themselves because they don't fit this vision of trans masculinity. contrariwise, don't assume that all trans ladies are femme and straight because it does the same fucking thing to them. if you do the thing, I will post reaction images of cute animals looking disappointed in you and/or my one screencap of Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic demoralizing a dragon. don't make things harder for trans people than they already are, and especially don't make things harder for trans women because trans women get crapped on and invalidated and erased so fucking much even by other trans people and I'm not too proud to beg you guys not to fucking do these things okay?? so pretty please be good to trans people and don't do the stuffy stuff things I just said.)

but back to Isaac: so if Isaac is a trans dude, I'm assuming that he is femme (because I make everyone femme except for like… Gerard, Blobfish, Ennis, Edmund Lahey, and Aidan because I hate them, and more to the point [have you even](http://imgmf1.starnow.com/22/688722_4705671.jpg) [fucking seen](http://31.media.tumblr.com/1d65f5a3b2db38d4abe80ce19dd48f89/tumblr_mojxb0PbGf1svl56io1_1280.jpg) [what Daniel Sharman looks like](http://25.media.tumblr.com/622ca5c36042702c0893c7f2593e8c34/tumblr_miaa3zfBMe1qgo311o5_500.jpg) [in long hair and makeup](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/57094056707/danie1sharman-daniel-sharman-as-harry-in)?? he's so pretty I could just start crying, it causes me actual facts physical pain okay).

but the significance of Isaac being femme and presenting in femme ways is different as a trans guy and raises all kinds of questions about whether or not people will take his gender identity seriously, whether or not they'll ask him why he's "still acting like a girl if he wants to be a boy," and so on. and then there are the questions of how Isaac feels about and handles all of these things that he has to deal with… and okay, Isaac is now officially a trans dude in the Jude verse so he and Boyd can bond over gender feels and be better friends than they got a chance to be in canon, I've decided. but yes, as I was saying: gender feels. there are lots of them.

Likewise, nonbinary trans interpretations: Jude verse!Scott is DFAB and genderfluid (neé Sofía Maristela Delgado McCall, which xie does still use sometimes; hir usual feeling genderwise is kind of androgynous and xie will usually accept either Scott or Sofía but on days when xie feels more dudely than anything, xie prefers to get called Scott); Scott is also femme as fuck… but how does Scott go about navigating hir desire to be femme and present in femme ways while also trying to present androgynously enough that xie won't get misgendered? (which admittedly doesn't happen that often because personal reasons on my part as the author because in my mind, even characters who are dicks like Derek and Peter and Jackson understand that you don't fucking misgender people [especially Jude verse's Derek, since they are also nonbinary], but it does still happen because it's a thing that happens IRL and I don't think that Jeff's insistence on how the Teen Wolf 'verse magically ~has no prejudice~ is either accurate in the text or a good thing to do for representational reasons because it's denying the facts of RL things that fans of the show have to deal with like racism, misogyny, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, etc.)

Does Scott ever question hir own gender identity based on hir fondness for femme stuff and how comfortable xie feels in femme stuff? How does Scott feel about hir own femmeity in general; like how does Scott enact hir femmeity and how does Scott feel about different outfits xie likes and how does Scott feel about how hir femmeity is perceived by other people? How does Scott feel about sharing clothes with Stiles in the context of femmeity and femme stuff (just because Skittles clothes sharing is a huge part of my headcanon for Skittles regardless of their sexes and/or genders in any given fic)?

How do Scott's gender feels weave in with and play with hir sexuality feels (I think Scott is bisexual in this fic but xie may also be like, demisexual biromantic or something; either way, Scott is queer because everyone is queer because I said so, except for like Gerard, Ennis, Aiden, Blobfish, Edmund, and Harris because I don't like them so cishet people can keep them)? How is race a factor here (because with Scott being a biracial Latin@ person, that's a factor to consider, especially vis a vis the usually white Eurocentric visions of femmeity)? How do weight and body type factor into things (because the usual visions of androgyny and femmeity that go around are also really skinny and fat shaming or at least fat excluding so I'm writing chubby!Scott because I want to, that's why)?

And then there are so many gender feels you can explore with femme stuff and cis characters too!! Like I listed a lot of my cis girl!Stiles gender feels (though not even remotely all of them) but for another example: Lydia is a cis girl but she is really high femme and bisexual… but she only comes out as bisexual after Jackson dumps her in Wolf's Bane and pretty much everyone she talks to (bar Scott, Stiles, Danny, and Allison) refuses to take her coming out seriously; they assume that she's just trying to get back at Jackson for dumping her and her femmeity and femme presentation are a huge part of that because femme queer ladies often get told things like, "you don't seem that queer, I mean you're so feminine" or, "but you're so pretty why would you want to be queer, you could have any boy you wanted." and of course it's significant to her that she doesn't get that crap from her friends—I've even pondered how I'd revise the Stiles and Lydia scenes in Formality with cis girl!Stiles (and in general because I hate so many things about how those scenes played out in canon like, "get off your cute little ass and dance with me"? how about fucking no, Stiles)…

and I wouldn't go to a romantically or sexually shippy place with them because I don't like romantic or sexual Stiles/Lydia personally, regardless of their sexes or genders, but like. I see Formality in the Jude 'verse being a turning point in the Stydia relationship and getting both of them to appreciate each other better as people and I see it coming about because of Stiles, in a rare moment of sensitivity (though also being kind of foot in mouthy about it because Stiles totally has the, "says whatever is on their mind regardless of what it is or how appropriate it is at any given time" thing that some people who have ADHD have), tells Lydia that she takes Lydia's bisexuality seriously and doesn't think Lydia is any less queer because she's femme or because she loves Jackson and Stiles actually thinks it's really awesome how Lydia is so high femme even though people look down on her for it, and Lydia shares her thoughts on Stiles being kind of messily incompetent at femme stuff (like she tries but for example: her hands are fidgety so she messes up her eyeliner and has to start over, but she loses her patience after a couple tries so she just smudges everything and tries to pretend that the meant to do that)—

but like. despite getting support from Stiles, Scott, Allison, and Danny on this count, Lydia still has to deal with a lot of people being total jackasses about her being bisexual and about her being femme and about her being both of these things, and she has a lot of insecurities going on underneath her surface so even if she refuses to show it, that kind of stuff is going to get to her on some level (or multiple levels, to varying degrees).

Likewise, Erica is a cis girl who is also bisexual and femme… but until she gets the Bite and it makes her epilepsy less aggressive and overall easier to manage, she doesn't feel like she can be out about her sexuality (because who would even want to date her, she's the perpetually sick freak who has a non-consensually taken video of pissing herself during a seizure up on youtube and no one will make the guy who put it there take it down or anything) and she definitely doesn't feel like she can be femme the way she wants to (because what's the point when even taking her meds doesn't guarantee that she's not going to have any grand mal seizures [the full on convulsions ones, as opposed to partial seizures or other types of seizures] and that would mess up the work she put into her appearance and into her presentation). but once she gets the bite and everything changes for her, she feels like she can be out about her sexuality and her femmeity so she starts being really aggressively in your face femme as a way of telling the people who made her feel like she couldn't be femme before to fuck off.

And in both of their cases, there's all kinds of biphobia and monosexism that they have to deal with (people thinking that their bisexuality isn't real or telling them that they're just confused or similar) and the particularly misogynistic and fetishizing biphobia that gets aimed at femme bisexual women (e.g., "so if you're bi does that mean you'll make out with each other and maybe Allison too because that would be so freaking hot"). Plus, Erica has disability/chronic illness feels to consider as well on top of all of these, and just… There's so much fertile ground for characterization and for stories and this is all just stuff that's directly or tangentially related to femmeity and femme interpretations of any given characters. There's so much more out there that I haven't even begun to touch on in the interests of keeping this post from getting too heinously TL;DR (I originally wanted it to maybe be a few hundred words at most, an effort that I now understand was completely pointless given my overabundance of feels just. alas, a cornucopia of feels, pretty much).

(and I've focused on cis ladies exclusively in these few paragraphs because I talk about femme cis dudes all the time on my tumblr blog anyway and I don't give enough attention over to the ladies; this is a failing on my part but if you want to know my femme cis dudes feels or get some inspiration about gender feels and femme stuff feels for cis dudes, [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-femme%21everyone-blog), go check out my, "this is a femme!everyone blog" tag. other tags of relevance: [things Scott McCall should wear](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/tagged/things-scott-mccall-should-wear), [things Isaac Lahey should wear](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/tagged/things-isaac-lahey-should-wear), [things Derek Hale should wear](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/tagged/things-derek-hale-should-wear), [this gives me femme!Dean feels](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/tagged/this%20gives%20me%20femme!dean%20feels), and [this gives me femme!Cas feels](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/tagged/this%20gives%20me%20femme!cas%20feels).)

I just. the thing I'm really getting at here is simple: **THERE IS SO MUCH POTENTIAL HERE WITH REGARD TO FEMME STUFF IN FANWORKS, IN RULE 63 WORKS AND NOT, AND IT'S ALL GOING UNTAPPED IN OUR FANWORKS BECAUSE WE'RE OVERWHELMINGLY JUST GOING, "WELL CHARACTER OF THE DAY IS A CIS GIRL NOW SO SHE MUST BE FEMME BECAUSE REASONS." JUST. I CAN'T. COME ON, PEOPLE. WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS. WE HAVE SO MUCH POWER THAT WE AREN'T USING AND SO MUCH POTENTIAL THAT WE AREN'T ACTUALIZING AND THAT SUCKS IF YOU ASK ME ESPECIALLY WHEN INSTEAD OF TAPPING INTO OUR VAST WELL OF PROMISE AND LATENT STORIES TO TELL WE'RE ACTUALLY OVERWHELMINGLY JUST PERPETUATING REALLY HARMFUL THINGS. WE ARE ALL BETTER THAN THIS OH MY GOSH.**

and if you're mostly here for porn and not social issues, then that's okay, too! I love porn! Porn is a great thing!! If you're mostly just here for happy fluffy feels that involve your fave characters, then that's okay too! I personally prefer hurt/comfort and grimdark and angsty things but I understand people wanting happy fluffy stuff and I like happy fluffy stuff too and anyone who ever tells you that happy fluffy things are wrong or lesser than or that you're wrong for wanting them? That person is a jerk and I will fight them for you because you deserve to be able to enjoy happy fluffy things if you want to without any other fans telling you that your preferences are lesser than or not good enough or wrong just because they prefer other stuff.

I realize that I'm probably coming off as soapbox-y and pedantic and like I'm saying that all the fics ever have to be character studies that delve into exploring social issues, but I'm really REALLY not trying to say anything like that. I like writing character studies and I like exploring social issues in my characterizations and my fics because these are things that interest me **but these are not everyone's taste and I'm really not trying to devalue any genres that don't ostensibly involve wibbly wobbly timey wimey gender ball feels**. I'm especially not trying to devalue fluff or porn because although they're both two of the most popular genres of fanfiction, they also get a lot of undeserved crap from within fandom that reeks of respectability politics (e.g. fans complaining that non-fandom people think that "all we do is write porn" as though there's anything wrong with using fanworks to explore sexuality, fans saying that all happy fluffy fanworks are inherently OOC even when they show their work, etc.), so even though they're not my personal favorite genres to read or create, I'm really defensive about the legitimacy of porny and fluffy fanworks.

the bottom line here is this: as long as your porn and/or your happy fluffy feels aren't hurting anyone (e.g., as long as they don't bash other ships or characters, as long as they don't rest on perpetuating oppression and marginalization, as long as they don't get into the realm of abuse apologism or similar, etc.), then NEVER let anyone tell you that you don't have a right to your happy fluffy feels and fanworks and/or your porny fanworks and feels. **_NEVER_**. anyone who tries to say that you don't have a right to these things if they aren't hurting anyone is playing fandom police and that's unacceptable.

all I'm saying here is that porn and happy fluffy feels are not mutually exclusive with gender feels and femme stuff feels and exploring all this stuff that I'm talking about ESPECIALLY if you're going to play around with Rule 63 in any of its various forms, be they cisswaps or trans interpretations or "suddenly woke up as a different sex." like. all of my myriad examples in here edge more in the direction of hurt/comfort and angsty character study stuff because that's what I like reading and writing best and those things are what ring most emotionally true for me personally, but there's a lot of room for these things to exist and get explored in porn and happy fluffy fic too.

in fact, I'd even argue that exploring these kinds of feels (or any kind of feels that you might not immediately think of as relevant though I'm focused on the gender feels stuff) [can enhance your porn and fluff fics](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/69867293530/to-make-things-worse-a-lot-of-plot-heavy-porn) by adding extra depth and sensitivity to your characterization, even if you don't necessarily include all the things you ponder in the final drafts of any fics you put out there.

as that quote says, you can make your porn so much richer by paying more attention to the different elements of a scene like characterization and context and so on that aren't directly relevant to the sexual encounter itself (like what's been going on for the characters at work or school or their non-romantic or non-sexual kinds of relationships, how they're feeling and why they're seeking out sex, how do gender feels impact or play with any given character's feels about their sexuality, etc.), by "[getting] you inside how it feels to be these unique people having this particular sex." and the same principle applies to fluff: there are some common fluffy fic scenarios and tropes, like movie night and/or date night, fake dating, cuddling, arguing over the takeout, and so on and so forth… but what is it like for these unique people to be in these scenarios at this particular moment in time that you're writing about?

and with an eye toward stuff like gender feels and representation: I'm not saying that anyone is in the wrong for having a preference for characters who are white cis men or for preferring to write those characters. I'm not saying that writing those characters is inherently racist, cissexist, misogynistic, effeminophobic (if you prefer not to write femme-related interpretations of them), or whatever. I absolutely acknowledge that white cis male characters are overall given more time and attention and characterization to work with from their respective narratives (though canonically queer and/or trans guys and canonically disabled and/or neuroatypical guys generally get less of these things than cishet guys and guys who aren't disabled and/or neuroatypical). And some people just don't like femme stuff as much as I do (or at all) and that's okay…

 **but with fandom being such an inherently transformative space and such a free range playground for our desires and our imaginations, we can do so much better than all of us (myself definitely included) have been doing with regard to including characters who AREN'T cis white men in all of our fics and fanworks.** and what this means vis a vis gender feels is that there's a lot of room to include gender feels in your fluff, your porn, your kidfic, your h/c, your grimdark and fucked up nightmares, any of the fanworks you want to create whatsoever, regardless of any preferences you have regarding ships and/or characters.

and acting like gender feels (or race feels, disability feels, neurodivergent feels, queer feels, and so on) don't have a place in porn, fluff, or fic in general unless they "somehow serve the plot" is not only gross (because it perpetuates the idea that these feels are aberrances and abnormalities and that they don't deserve to be represented except in certain kinds of stories), but it's also really fucking silly on a writing and characterization level. like, putting away my social issues soapbox for a minute and putting on my creative writer hat instead: the idea here generally goes that certain kinds of feels need to somehow justify their presence in a fic or a fanwork through the magical nonsense of ~plot relevance, and then there's the attendant idea that including feels like these and characters who have these feels in things is "trying too hard" or "detracting from the story."

and these things are completely fucking ridiculous from a writer's perspective **because you don't have to foreground these feels if you don't want to but writing them off entirely shuts down and closes off entire realms of potential for your characterization and entire groups of potential stories. YOU ARE ACTIVELY LIMITING YOURSELF AS A WRITER BY SAYING THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT OR THINK ABOUT ANY GIVEN SET OF FEELS OR ISSUES BECAUSE THEY AREN'T OSTENSIBLY "RELEVANT" ENOUGH TO MERIT YOUR ATTENTION**.

(and getting on my soapbox again for a hot second? the idea that these things aren't "relevant" because your plot is about characters having sex or arguing about takeout or trying to find the magical Red Herring to stop the Apocalypse or whatever… like. _no_?? these feels and issues regarding people's identities impact your characterization by shaping these people's experiences and the characterization impacts the plot at least on the level of impacting how any given character perceives what's going on and reacts to it. Boyd does not stop being black just because he's fighting vampires. Scott does not stop being Latin@ just because he's dealing with shit as a True Alpha. Allison and Lydia do not stop being ladies just because they're arguing about where to go on their honeymoon. Stiles does not stop being bisexual just because he got whammied with sex pollen. **No matter what your plot is, issues of characterization and identity are still important and inherently relevant to the story you're telling and how you tell it**.)

obviously, you don't HAVE to write any of these things that I've mentioned in here or even think about them if you don't want to. and I'm not going to try to make anyone write anything because that's a form of fandom policing that just invites the "put up or shut up" retort of, "well if you care so much about it, why aren't you writing this stuff yourself" (fair question; and I **_am_** writing this stuff myself in all kinds of genres and media, some of it's even published on my AO3 already… but some of it is still in WIP territory so it's not published yet).

all I really want to say here is that there are different trends in Rule 63 fanworks that bother me—in particular, the way that people will take a character who's been cisswapped into a lady and completely change her behavior and gender presentation without any exploration of why they're doing the thing or any reasons given beyond, "well she is a cis girl now and ~reasons." and because I don't believe in taking tropes or genres away from people unless they're inherently fucked up and harmful somehow (which the femme cisswapped ladies business is not), and because I don't believe in problematizing or complicating things without at least trying to offer up some potential solutions or alternatives, I've tried to point out some places where there are questions we could be asking and things we could be exploring and all kinds of stories we could be telling in our fanworks, using my own fanworks as a case example, in the hopes that it might get more people to think about things in a way that helps them to be better, more sensitive and attentive writers and fanwork-creators.

So… yeah. This has been a post. Hi, my name is Kassie. I'm a white neuroatypical DFAB genderqueer lazy femme imp and I just have a lot of feelings. This post is brought to you by the association of fabulous femme as fuck tumbloggers, the field of gender and sexuality studies, whoever decided that it was good idea to let me into the field of gender and sexuality studies (jury is out on whether or not it was a good idea but well they enabled me to find something I want to do with my life professionally and a plan for how to get there so I appreciate that), pretty pink panties with lacy trim and ribbons along the waistband, the letters F U Q and K, the number 16, and the generous support of viewers like you. And now, the weather (it's snowing… at least, it is in my part of Michigan).


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